To Be Coincidences
by seilleanmor
Summary: A Castle fanfiction for advent. Castle/Beckett AU meetings
1. Chapter 1

"_The point of stories set in alternate universes are to show that no matter what setting or circumstance, these two people will always find each other. I will find you. Every me loves every you._"

**deimosluna**

"_Do you think the universe fights for souls to be together? _

_Some things are too strange and strong to be coincidences_."

**E****mery Allen**

* * *

stuck-in-an-airport-because-the-flights-were-SO-VERY-delayed-and-it's-like-two-am AU

Growling low down in her throat, Kate does an about-face and stalks away from the Starbucks counter, shoving her wallet down into the cavernous reaches of her trench coat pocket. The woman whose voice pours out of the loudspeaker over Kate's head sounds entirely unapologetic and she grits her teeth on her way to the flight desk, the fingernails of her free hand carving pale little crescent moons into the meat of her palm.

At the desk, a heavyset man gulps at the slam of Kate's badge down onto the countertop and winces, a bead of sweat taking a slick dive down the side of his face. "Uh, ma'am"

"Detective." Kate says sharply, tapping two fingers against the gold plating of her shield. "I need to know what's going on. I have to be back in New York tonight."

"Yes, Detective. I understand that. There's just nothing we can do, the weather. . ." The man - Gareth - so says the lurid orange name tag above his breast - swallows hard and trails off at the glare Kate sends his way. A hand floats at her hip, searching for the phantom bulge of her piece, but she's been naked and vulnerable without it for the entire weekend.

Granted, she hasn't exactly had much cause to use it over the course of the ridiculous _Sexual Harassment in the Workplace_ seminar her captain had her attend. Out of the city of course, _of course_, and now she's stranded in Washington until the storm that has the sky blooming in a melange of purpling haematoma passes over their heads.

Kate tugs her gaze away from the windows and refocuses on Gareth and the raw meat sweat of his face. "Right. Thank you." She manages, earning herself a crooked sort of twitch at the corner of Gareth's mouth that might be a smile.

Hoisting her weekender bag higher up onto her shoulder, Kate rotates her neck until she feels the muscles pop and relax. All she wanted was to get home and take a blistering bath, maybe drink a glass of wine. But no. No. Now she gets to spend the night on the floor of the airport.

She makes the walk through the terminal and to the gate they were supposed to board from, letting herself get adopted into the folds of people that meander along the roadways of the airport. It's almost nice, the kinship she feels with all of these other stranded people.

At the gate people are gathering in clusters and settling in for the long haul, bags thumped and arranged into pillows to lend almost-comfort to bodies that already ache with indignation. Kate sinks all the way down to the floor and leans against her own holdall, dropping her head into her hands. She should call her captain really, let him know that she's not going to make her six am shift tomorrow, but she just can't face that conversation right now. Stupid, hot tears prickle at the corners of her eyes and she squeezes them closed, forces it back. She will not cry in the airport just because of a flight cancellation.

A sinking weight at her side makes her startle and Kate lifts her head, hand flying to her hip once again in search of her absent Glock. Frustration makes her bristle and she frowns at the man settling in next to her, a cell phone pressed close against his ear.

"Yes honey, I know. I know. I'm sorry. I'll get home as soon as I can. Alright. See you soon. I love you." Kate wrinkles her nose and pretends she isn't listening to every word of the conversation. As a detective, she has a finely honed and well-worn poker face, and she employs it now to keep this handsome stranger from realising she's listening in to his conversation with his wife.

He ends his call and drops his phone onto his thigh, rolling broad shoulders inside the sharp edges of his jacket. No ring on his finger, Kate notices, so most likely it's a clingy girlfriend instead. The stranger grits out a sigh and drops his head back against the wall, scrubbing a hand over his face.

The roughshod tread of guilt and sadness over the man's face makes pity spark in Kate's chest and she clears her throat, catches his attention. "It'll be okay. You'll make it home, I'm sure."

"Oh!" The man's eyes pop open and he twists his head, pins Kate like a specimen spreadeagled on a table top with his stare. "I'm. . .sitting _really_ close to you. Wow. Sorry."

"Don't worry about it." She grins, flicking her eyes to the cell phone still balanced precariously at his thigh. "You were distracted. Girlfriend?"

"Uh, no. My daughter actually. I'm supposed to be helping her with an assignment."

His daughter. Right. Kate stiffens a little and chews at her bottom lip, averts her eyes from this man. "You have a daughter? How old is she?"

"She's fifteen. Alexis." The man's whole face lights up at the mention of his little girl and he taps the button to unlock his phone, shows Kate his lock screen picture. A beautiful girl with a shock of fiery hair grins at the camera and Kate can't help but smile herself.

A doting father. She remembers what that's like, and her fragile heart feels scraped raw and bruised at the thought. "She's beautiful."

"She is. And very smart. She doesn't really need my help with her schoolwork. Just wants me to come home."

"What brings you to Washington?" Kate tries to frame her question as unobtrusively as possible, but she's naturally curious and this stranger has sparked something in her, opened a greedy maw in the pit of her stomach that hungers for knowledge.

Next to her, the man winces and steeples his fingers, pushes them together as if stretching the joints. "A book signing. I'm a writer."

"Oh? Anything I've heard of?"

"Um. . .Derrick Storm?"

"Really? I've read that series. You don't look much like your picture on the book jacket."

That earns her a burst of laughter and the man - Rick Castle, holy crap - shakes his head, a flush of embarrassment peppering his cheeks. "Yeah. That picture is pretty old now. I don't get recognised so often anymore."

"That must be a blessing though, right Rick?"

"I suppose it is. Especially when Alexis is with me." He shrugs, rests his head back against the wall again. It doesn't look entirely comfortable, the way his neck is torquing, but Kate finds herself echoing him anyway.

Turning her wrist over in her lap, Kate checks her watch and groans. "I'm seriously regretting picking such a late flight now."

"Tell me about it." Rick huffs, rolling his head to the side to look at her. His face is startlingly close, enough that her vision blurs, and Kate gets to her knees and moves away. From the wall and temptation both.

"I'm gonna grab coffee. You want some?"

Rick's face cracks open around a grin and he nods, fissures of delight carved around his eyes and mouth. It's appealing, his easy happiness, and Kate finds herself smiling right back at him.

"That sounds great, thanks. Make it an espresso."

"Sure." Her knees crack loudly when she stands up and she winces, takes a moment to arch her back and feel the shiver of tension rushing out of her muscles. Walking away, she feels his eyes mapping the topography of her spine and travelling lower, and she lets her hips sway just a little more than she usually might.

Rick Castle. Who would have thought?

* * *

When the announcement comes over the loudspeaker that their flight is finally ready to leave, Rick is almost sorry to hear it. It's three in the morning, and the beautiful stranger he accidentally sat down next to is slumped fast asleep against his shoulder.

The undersides of his thighs burn with the scratch of airport carpeting, brutal even through his slacks, and his body has rapidly descended into something close to what rigor mortis must feel like. Even so, the honeyed warmth of the woman at his side negates all of it.

After she came back with their coffees and settled down on the floor next to him again, he snuck a peek at her cup and gleaned her name. Kate. He caught the way her fingers danced at her hip when the thunder crashed outside, an impulsive reaction, and he didn't miss the flash of the shield in her pocket either.

A cop.

He felt the clutch of childlike excitement at that, a frisson of pleasure that such a fascinating woman had ended up here, waiting for the same flight as him.

In the end, he didn't even have to bring it up. She told him about her work as a homicide detective of her own accord, lamented the fact that she'd probably have to go straight in to work from the airport. He had done his best to make sympathetic noises at the right moments. To not geek out over how totally _cool_ Kate is.

She had fallen asleep slowly, unconsciousness nipping at her heels, and when her cheek had settled against his shoulder his heart turned over in his chest, thrashed like a captive bird against his ribs. It has been so long. Since he's been so taken with a woman, yes, but also. . .since he's wanted to write.

His signing in Washington was a last ditch, desperate attempt on the part of his publicist to save his career. In hindsight, it was monumentally stupid to kill off his main character. He had just gotten so horribly bored, every word that hobbled from his fingertips feeling stale and trite and not at all what he really wanted to say.

This woman, though-

He could write about her. Wants to write about her, desperately.

Rick nudges his bicep underneath her head and she stirs, immediately alert. It must be a cop thing, he supposes. He watches with undisguised fascination as she glances around them, observes the other passengers struggle to their feet.

There's a collective numbness born of sitting on the floor so long, and the throngs of people share sympathetic glances with one another, rotating limbs and rubbing at skin to encourage feeling back. Rick gets to his feet and reaches a hand down, helps Kate to stand too.

Chin dipping, she peers up at him through the forest of her lashes and the corner of her mouth quirks upward. "Sorry about, uh. . .falling asleep on you."

"No problem." He laughs, squeezing her hand before he forces himself to let go. A queue is forming next to the desk at the gate, people threading together like pearls onto a necklace, and Rick follows Kate to take their places among the gaggle of yawning, grouchy passengers.

He and Kate are directed towards different doors by the flight attendant and he snags her elbow, pulls her out of the flow of traffic. Swallowing back his hesitation, he plucks his cell phone free from his pocket and lifts a shoulder sheepishly.

"I've really liked having your company to pass the time tonight. Maybe when we get back to the city we could get a coffee or something? If you're not busy."

A blush erupts at Kate's cheeks and she ducks her head, a curtain of dark hair falling forward to hide her face from him. He waits her out, and then he gets the arc of her mouth into a grin in reward. "That sounds great. Here, I'll give you my number."

Rick passes his phone over and takes hers, adds himself to her contact list. A kiss pressed to her cheek, and then he watches as she joins the flow of people again and disappears around a bend in the tunnel that takes them from the gate to the door of the plane.

A hand lifting to his mouth to tangle in the silvery web of his own smile, Rick moves for the gate, bicep still warm with the sleepy heat of her. Stuffed into his pockets, his fingers wriggle with the clutch of words and he moves for his seat with his body on autopilot, his brain rapt with thoughts of Kate and all the multitudinous things he wants to write about her.

* * *

**A/N:** With gratitude to Alex castlefanfics for helping me condense the list of alternate universes in which these two can stumble into each other. I'm writing these as I go, so we'll see how well I do at keeping up. Stick with me.


	2. Chapter 2

'i'm pretending to be ur bf bc u looked VERY uncomfortable with that person at the bar hitting on u' AU

The _Old Haunt_ is seething, spitting people out angrily into the streets to stumble their way through the city, a livewire of nascent expectation crackling between everyone that traipses along the sidewalks. It's gorgeous outside, the snow in soft kisses along the tops of shoulders and tangling in strands of hair, but Rick's slump against the bar is an age old thing, his skin fissuring with stillness.

A new year.

Flexing his fingers around the tumbler of scotch cradled in his palm, Rick lifts the glass just enough to bring it back down onto the warped wooden countertop with a satisfying crack, the bartender's head whipping around to see him and watch the tap of two fingers just next to the glass.

He likes the kid. Young, freckled, working the bar to pay his way through college. If he were more sober, and yes, alright, less melancholy, he might call the kid over, ask him about his major and his dreams. It isn't for lack of caring that Rick lets himself be that right-angled guy in the corner propping up the bar with his misery.

Just no energy. Not tonight.

Alexis is in Los Angeles with her mother; he pretty much had to shovel her onto the plane himself, but Meredith's interest in their daughter has piqued now that she's old enough for shopping and talking about boys, and God help him if he doesn't want his daughter to do the rest of her growing up with only one parent.

A fresh tumbler of scotch appears in front of him, empty glass secreted away like sleight of hand, and Rick takes a sip just to feel the roll of heat down into his belly. The door opens and a wash of frigid air floods the bar, curling crooked fingers underneath the collar of his shirt.

He half-turns on his stool to watch the newcomer, wonders if they'll give up on the idea of trying to squeeze through to the bar itself like so many others have already tonight. People are packed tight, shoulder to shoulder as if standing sentinel to guard the shift of the years.

The woman by the door doesn't seem particularly phased by the crush of bodies. Snow clings to her like static, hair and coat peppered with it, and he watches with undisguised interest as she unwinds her scarf and exposes the pale stretch of her neck.

A hand propping up the cliff face of his jaw, he watches her weave through the throngs of people and carve herself a spot at the bar. Incredible, the way people fall in sheaves to make space for the sinewy length of this woman.

She leans over the surface of the bar, gets her mouth up close against the bartender's ear. It's crushingly loud, the bass and the chatter and the swell of melody like a patina over his skin, and Rick's own thoughts run thick and viscous in his head.

The woman - she is at the other end of the bar now, settled onto a suddenly-vacant stool - takes a slow drag of her beer and shucks out of her coat. The sweaty gaggle of bodies is cloying, the heat in fingers around Rick's throat, and he wants to be outside in the bright-dark world.

Rick knocks back the rest of his scotch and slams the tumbler down in one fluid motion, slides off of his barstool. It's filled before he even has his jacket draped securely over one arm and he fists a hand around his gloves and scarf, moves for the door. He'll have to walk right past the woman to make it out into the street, and a silly adolescent part of him plots an accidental stumble, a fall that will have his body crushing against hers if only for a moment.

As he approaches, already having reconciled himself to perhaps the brush of his arm against hers when he squeezes past, he sees that he's not the only one whose interest has been piqued by the arrival of this enigmatic - and yes, beautiful - woman in the bar. The men on either side of her are leaning in close, leering at her and circling. Strings of saliva stretch across their gaping maws as they snap, starving, at her heels.

He wouldn't intervene, truly he wouldn't. She looks like she can more than take care of herself, and he's not blind to the bulge of a piece next to her hip. Only, she seems desperately uncomfortable with the attention of the two long-past sober gentlemen bracketing her at the bar. Rick steels himself and clears his throat, places a palm between the shoulder blades of the woman.

These two jackals are regulars of the bar; he's seen them hunt before. Knows that they won't back down even with his intervention. There's only one way to get them to cut their losses and scamper away, tails between legs. And this woman - cop? - is not going to like it.

"Babe, are these guys bothering you?"

"She's yours?" One of the guys growls at him, straightening up on the barstool.

Ha! Rick is still a good bit taller and, he's delighted to see, broader too. He's suddenly far less intimidated. "No, she's her own woman. Who isn't currently looking for company."

Squaring off, he leaves his palm right where it is even with the ripple of aggravation down the stranger's spine, and the two guys move away to mourn their loss further down the bar. There's a heavy pause, a beat of absolute and total stillness, and then the woman turns to face him.

"Uh…thanks. But I didn't need a white knight."

"Of that I have no doubt." He grins, holding out a hand. She takes it, brow quirked, and in the amber burn of the light he can see she's more beautiful than he first anticipated. "I'm Rick Castle."

That earns him a shy grin, the tip of her head. "Kate Beckett."

"Pleasure to meet you, Kate. Sorry if that was forward of me. I've just seen those guys in action before."

"It's fine. I appreciate it."

Oh. . .wow.

This woman - Kate - her smile is this ripened, beautiful curve that seems to pour joy across her whole face, has him smiling right back at her almost unconsciously. It takes him several moments to remember how to swallow again, to pull himself together. "I was just getting out of here. You wouldn't want to join me, would you?"

"Actually I'd really like that." She says, standing up from her barstool with more grace than he has ever seen another human being manage before. Kate slides into her coat, winds her scarf around her neck and nods at him in a gesture to let him lead the way.

Right. Walking.

Well and he should be so lucky. More like a horrible, drunkard-filled obstacle course. He almost topples out into the street, finding his footing at the last possible second. Somehow, he even manages to hold the door open for Kate, ushering her ahead of him up the steps.

Outside, the sky is a pale swathe above them and the world is silenced. Rick steps down from the sidewalk and into the middle of the street just because he can. Later, the ploughs will come through and the world will be remade in salt and grit, the road scraped raw again. For now, he can crooked-step through the city and turn back to see the track of his footprints and Kate's, winding side by side.

"This is depressing." Kate huffs, halting their progress at a street corner. A streetlamp stretches up at her back, the iron ornate and blackened with smog, and the pour of golden light over her shoulders makes his breath catch.

"What is?"

"A new year."

Rick huffs a laugh and shakes his head, scrubbing a gloved hand over his face and meeting her eyes. "Tell me about it. I just got divorced."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Kate says, and something about the gentle cadence of her voice has him completely convinced that she means it. Never in his life before has he heard such sincerity from a relative stranger. Tracing a line in the snow with the toe of his shoe, he shoves his hands down into his pockets and shrugs his shoulders.

"S'fine." He smiles - a real one, because seriously look at this woman - and shakes the snow out of his hair. It scatters down over his face and he splutters, groaning loud. It earns him a peal of laughter from Kate, stunning and pure like a heavenly chorus.

With a heavy heart, he realises that the two of them have no destination in mind, and he can't follow her forever. As much as he would like to stitch himself to her heels, it's New Year's Eve and she most certainly has better places to be.

"Can I call you a cab, Kate?"

"Oh, no." She gives him that smile again, runs a hand through her hair. She isn't wearing gloves, and he's struck with the silly urge to capture her slender fingers in his and warm her up a little. "My apartment is a couple blocks away. It'll be nice to walk."

"I could. . .walk with you?"

Stupid, so monumentally stupid. He's only just _met_ this woman, for goodness sake. And probably shot himself in the foot massively, pretending to be her boyfriend to rescue her from a situation she was clearly plenty capable of rescuing herself from.

Kate chews on her bottom lip a moment and regards him carefully. It's like an interrogation, her stare, and Rick squares his shoulders and forces himself not to wither. "Sure. That would be nice."

Turning her back on him, Kate crosses the street and Rick fist pumps, the cascade of joy through him completely taking over control of his basic motor functions for a moment. And then he's collected again, suave, and he hurries to catch up to the gorgeous woman across the street.

As they walk, Rick chatters in that way he's never really been able to curtail. He tells Kate about his little girl, about the clog in his throat when he watched her disappear through the airport gate. About his mother and how he'd really rather not dwell on what she's doing this evening.

In return, he gets snippets precious as pearls to thread on to a necklace of knowledge about Kate. She tells him about her work as a detective (awesome!) and that most of her friends are fellow cops, working tonight. That her captain forced her to take the night off, but she had no one to spend it with. He's grateful for that, for the work of fate that allowed her to show up at the _Old Haunt_ tonight.

At the door to her building, he stops her with the touch of his fingers at the crook of her elbow and she turns to face him. God help him, she's stunning. The shock of dark hair spilling over around her scarf, softening the angles of her cheekbones.

"I'm really glad I met you tonight, Kate." A moment to steel himself, and then Rick leans in and dusts a kiss to her cheek. Dangerously close to the corner of her mouth - blame the scotch for that - and she stiffens a little. Doesn't push him away though, and he takes that as a victory to see him through the changing of the years.

"Happy New Year."

"Happy New Year, Rick." She hums back to him, a smile ripening, and then taps in the code for the door to her building and disappears inside, the door closing in his face. He sighs and steps away, fishes in the pocket of his jeans for his cell phone.

No way he's going to get a cab now. Not with the streets whited out. It'll have to be the car service. After he finishes speaking with them, Rick leans back against the edifice of the building and sighs, resigns himself to this one evening of magic and mystery.

The cold is biting, even through his gloves; he pushes his hands into the depths of his coat pockets again. A sharp edge jolts him and he frowns, pulls out a card that wasn't there before. On it is printed Kate's name and her contact details in blocky, no-nonsense font.

Her business card. Slipped into his pocket while, he assumes, he was kissing her. Just thinking it makes him shiver with pleasure and he slots the card back into his pocket for safe keeping.

Already, this newborn year is looking a whole lot more wonderful.


	3. Chapter 3

meeting while waiting for hours on end in the emergency room AU

"Sweetheart, I really really have to use the bathroom. I'm sorry. I'll be as fast as I can."

"Daddy, no!" The little girl yells out, the flush of outrage at her pale little cheeks making her face clash with the shock of her hair. Kate tries her best not to stare too blatantly, head leaning back against the wall of the ER.

She is so tired, has been here for so long that she almost wants to say _screw it_ and ask Lanie to patch her up instead. The slash at the inside of her bicep isn't even bleeding that much anymore; it wells up in indignation when she takes the pressure and the makeshift compress away, but does she really need stitches?

Well. Yes, she does. Montgomery told her he didn't want to see her back at the precinct until she had been to the hospital, and Lanie is busy with a fresh case anyway. Beckett has resigned herself to the fact that she has no choice but to be here.

With, it seems, six hundred other people. The city is struggling its way through some horrible weather, and the ER is bustling with snow-related injuries. In comparison to a lot of the people coming through, Kate is not in any way an urgent situation. She just has to sit here until someone has a spare five minutes to stitch her up.

The father and daughter a few seats down from her are still locked in their battle of wills, the little girl with arms tight around her dad's neck, refusing to budge. They've been here even longer than Kate has and it shows; the girl is flagging, clearly exhausted, and her father doesn't look much better.

Damn it, the sense of responsibility she feels whenever she's in her uniform propels her to clear her throat and stand, one hand still keeping pressure on the knife wound in her opposite bicep. "Hi there. Do you want me to sit with her while you use the bathroom?"

"Oh, would you? Thank you so much." The man sighs out, scrubbing a hand down his face and finally managing to peel his daughter away from him.

Kate manages a smile she really doesn't feel - even if she is a cop, getting stabbed earlier today still came with a fair amount of shock. "Don't worry about it. Why don't you grab a coffee too? We'll be okay, won't we-?"

"Alexis." The girl pipes up, staring at Kate through the pale blonde fringe of her lashes. She's a pretty little thing, rosebud mouth and enormous eyes, and the smile Kate musters for the girl is far more genuine.

"My name is Becke- Kate. It's Kate." It took her so long in the academy to get used to introducing herself with her last name, and now it's a reflex that she hardly ever manages to curb when she needs to.

The man, Alexis' father, crouches down next to the chair and takes one of his daughter's hands in both of his own, pressing a smacking kiss to the back that makes the girl erupt in giggles. "Will you be okay with Kate if I go to the bathroom, pumpkin? I'll go get you a snack, too."

"Goldfish crackers?"

"If they have them, sweetheart. I'll be right back."

Alexis curls up in her seat, sleeves of her sweater pulled down over her hands, but she looks decidedly calmer. Officer Beckett sinks down into the seat that the little girl's father vacated, wincing as the movement jostles her arm.

At least she doesn't have her service weapon to deal with. One of her fellow officers took it back to the precinct when Kate left for the hospital. She just. . .still hasn't gotten used to the way people flinch away from her when they notice that she's packing.

"Are you a policewoman?" The girl asks quietly, her legs tucked up underneath her now.

Kate huffs a laugh at that, grinning to herself. "Yes, I am. What brings you to the emergency room, Alexis?"

"Me and Daddy were decorating for Christmas and one of the ornaments was broken and I got a splinter." The girl holds her finger up as if for Kate's inspection and sure enough, it's swollen and raw. Looks nasty. "It was too deep for Daddy to get with the tweezers."

Beckett is more than a little taken aback by this girl and her wisdom, her precociousness. And enamoured by it too, but don't tell the other officers back at the precinct. "Oh no! Well, I'm sure the nurses will be able to have that out for you in no time."

"What happened to you, Kate?"

Right. Damn. How does she. . . "I had to help arrest somebody today, and I got hurt while it was happening."

"Really really bad?" The kid breathes, wide eyed. Her gaze darts all over Kate's torso, as if searching for some horrific injury that has previously managed to escape her attention, and Beckett grins.

"Not too bad. I just need a couple of stitches."

"Wow." The girl breathes, apparently thoroughly impressed by Beckett. She blushes, feels a little bit like a fool under the scrutiny of this girl who can't be more than ten years old. An only child - and all of her cousins are older - Kate doesn't really have any experience with children.

Not enough to know what she's doing here, anyway. "So tell me more about your decorations. Do you have a big tree?"

"A huuuuge tree." The girl giggles, throwing her head back. "It almost touches the roof of the loft."

A loft? Jeez. "That sounds amazing."

"It is. You should come and see it! And we could make dinner - Daddy is really good at cooking, especially dessert."

Oh man. What is it about kids and that way they have of forming immediate friendships? She isn't quite sure how to deter the girl, but a noncommittal noise seems to do the trick and she's already moving on.

"Do you have a tree at your house?"

Kate is rescued from answering by the return of the girl's father. How to even begin explaining that her apartment is bare of festivity. That she can't bear to decorate when it's just for her. When her mother isn't here to help.

"Hey." Alexis' dad says, handing a coffee cup to Beckett. "Here. Thanks for sitting with her."

Now she just feels ridiculous. There's no reason for her to be blushing. "It was no problem. Thank you for the coffee."

The man scoops his daughter up and steals her chair, settling the girl in his lap instead. She sinks into him immediately, eyes closing, and Kate's heart swells to bursting in her chest. How terribly she misses being a kid and seeing the whole world in her parents, feeling immediately safer whenever they were nearby.

"I realised I didn't even tell you my name. I'm Rick." He untangles a hand from around his little girl for Beckett to shake and she does so, his grip warm and firm and lovely.

"Nice to meet you, Rick. You have a wonderful daughter."

"Yeah." He grins, pressing a soft kiss to the crown of the girl's head. "I'm probably overreacting even bringing her here. I should just let the splinter work itself out on its own, shouldn't I?"

A shrug, and Kate adjusts the position of the makeshift bandage at her arm. "Better safe than sorry, I guess."

They lapse into a comfortable silence; Alexis crunches on the bag of goldfish crackers her father produces and Beckett sips at her coffee, relishes the slide of warmth down into the bottom of her stomach. It's pretty loud in the waiting area, but she finds herself highly attuned to the breathing of Rick next to her, the occasional shift of his position.

Seriously weird, this intense and immediate attraction, and she knows he feels it too. From her peripheral vision, she sees him casting glances at her over and over again, and she half wants to turn and catch him at it.

It's sweet though, and kind of funny too how hesitant he is. When they call her name and Kate gets to her feet he jerks up beside her, both arms still tight around Alexis, and stares at her with his mouth open in something close to panic.

"Thanks again. For sitting with her."

"Daddy." Alexis pipes up from her father's arms, rousing enough to lift her head and look at him. "Can you give Kate our phone number. I want her to come and see the big tree."

Beckett blanches at that, forces herself not to take a stumbling step backward. It's not every day she gets invited home by a child, and she isn't really sure what protocol is here.

For about half a second, she's concerned that Rick will be creeped out by his daughter's request. And then she looks at him, sees the childish delight spilling forth and she grins. "That sounds good. How about I give you my number instead and you call me, let me know what works for you."

"Sure." He beams, fishing a pen from his pocket and handing it to her. "Just write it on my hand, you're good."

Kate hesitates - it feels so wrong to deface him - but then his daughter pipes up again. "It's okay, Kate. Daddy is a writer and he _always_ writes things down on his hands. Sometimes it goes all the way up his arm and then he has to write on me, too!"

An eyebrow quirked, Beckett finishes up writing her number onto the soft skin of Rick's hand and quirks an eyebrow at him, watches his cheeks flame.

"That was one time!" He says, indignation pitching his voice higher than is natural, and Kate chuckles.

"I should-" she gestures to the nurse waiting for her by the door, scuffs her boot against the linoleum. "It was really nice to meet you guys. I hope you feel all better soon, Alexis."

"You too, Kate." The girl grins, wide and a good deal brighter than she was before. It's nice.

Just being around these two, the fierceness of their family bond, is making Beckett just a little bit less melancholy about the festive season and what lies beyond it. She presses a silly, impulsive kiss to Alexis' cheek and then strides off, shoulders squared just like she learned in the academy.

And Rick's pen in her pocket.

* * *

His little girl is uncontainable when they finally get home, her finger newly-bandaged. Alexis hops around his ankles like a little sparrow, tugging on the bottom of his sweater and looking up at him with imploring eyes.

"Can you call Kate now, Daddy? I really want her to come and see the tree. I don't think she has one of her own."

"What makes you think so, pumpkin?" He hums, sinking onto the couch and gathering his baby girl up in his lap for a hug. He squeezes tight and she shrieks, writhing to escape the grip of his arms and giggling hysterically into his neck.

And then she seems to remember his question, sobering and sliding out of his lap to sit cross-legged next to him instead. "She looked sad. And Daddy, she didn't have anyone with her to hold her hand at the hospital."

He wants to reassure his daughter that Kate is a grown woman, that just because no one was with her doesn't mean she _has _ no one. But more than that. . .he really wants to see her again. The gorgeous, uniformed woman that has made such a striking impression on his little girl.

"Alright, Alexis. Alright. I'll call her. But don't get your hopes up, okay? She might be too busy, or she might just not want to come. Remember that she doesn't really know us."

"But she's so nice, Dad. And so pretty." She casts him a sly glance as if gauging his reaction to that and he forces himself to remain impassive.

No way is he about to discuss with his nine year old just how stunningly gorgeous he thinks Kate is. How desperately he hopes they'll get to see her again.


	4. Chapter 4

on a train together and the train is stopped in the middle of nowhere for some reason AU

The train rolls to a grinding halt and Kate jerks out of her doze, fingers immediately flying to her hip to check that her badge is firmly in place. Her gun is there, she can feel the chill of metal through the material of her slacks, and it helps to calm her a little bit. She wakes up like this every single time these days. Startled and gasping and unable to think straight until she can check that her weapon is secure and within arm's reach.

A glance around the carriage shows her that nobody else seems to know why the train is stopping either. Outside, the hills roll untouched, white and smooth and pure. The trees reach their crooked fingers upwards, grasping for purchase against the hard slate of sky, and Kate tilts her head back against the seat.

It's lovely in a way things never really are in the city. The snow never quite manages to cover up the belly of her home and the horrors that can swallow you up if you let them, but out here in the countryside it does a wonderful job of remaking everything.

A voice comes over the speaker above her head and Kate pulls out her earphones to listen, feels her forehead puckering into an unattractive frown. "Ladies and gentlemen, due to a small avalanche over the tracks ahead of us, we're going to have to wait here until further notice."

Groans of dismay echo around the carriage and a baby a few rows in front of Kate bursts into tears. She sighs, rubs at the back of her neck. Gates sent her to visit their victim's home and try to find out just why the young woman was in the city all alone and was murdered for it. Beckett is intrigued, obviously, but right now she hates the new captain, wishes Montgomery had never retired. He never would have done this to her.

"Damn it." The man next to her says.

She was lucky to get a window seat on the train, had hoped she'd be able to turn sideways and stretch her legs out towards the aisle, but then the train had filled up and someone had taken the seat next to her. Richard Castle, and her younger self had leapt with excitement while the rest of her doggedly pushed it back.

He is not her favourite author anymore. Not since he killed Derrick Storm and then seemed to disappear from the face of the earth. Or the literary world, at least. It's totally irrational, unfair of her, but Kate feels like she was abandoned by him. His words helped her through so much, and then they stopped cold and now the beast in the pit of her belly roars with hunger.

"No cell reception." The man - Castle - says to her, twisting in his seat to look at her. "Does yours have any? I need to call my daughter, tell her I'll be back later than I thought."

Beckett tugs her cell phone free from her jacket pocket, holds it up to show him the absence of any bars. "Sorry."

"Damn."

"Will she be okay on her own?" The protective instinct in her, the cop, flares to life and she chews on her lip. Futile really, because what exactly is she going to do if the answer is no? Throw her badge around until someone gets this train moving and returns the man to his little girl.

Her concern earns her a smile from him and he puts his phone away again, leans back in the seat. "She'll be fine. We're spending the winter upstate, skiing, but I had to come back to the city for a meeting today. But she's eighteen; she'll be fine."

It's a lot of information, willingly given, and that worries Beckett too. This man is somewhat famous, and he really shouldn't be going around spewing out random life details to strangers. Even if she does feel like she knows him.

"I know what you're thinking." He laughs when she says nothing. "Why am I telling you this? It seems like we're gonna be stuck here for a bit, so we might as well get to know each other. And. . .I saw your badge. I figured I can trust you, Detective. . ."

"Beckett. Kate." She supplies, smothering a grin behind the splay of her fingers. What has _happened_ to her that this man has her smiling so easily?

"A pleasure to meet you, Detective Beckett. I'm Rick Castle." He holds out a hand to her and she accepts it, pleasantly surprised to find that his handshake is just firm enough to be confident without arrogance.

A part of her wants to blurt out that she knows exactly who he is, but it seems as if it will be much more fun to wait and see what information he offers up about himself if he thinks that they're total strangers. So no, she won't tell him that she has every single one of his books, a couple of them signed. She won't tell him that she's been a member of his fan site for years and she always DVRs his talk show appearances.

"So what brings you to upstate New York, Detective?" He asks, his smile warm and inviting. A little girl runs down the aisle towards them and trips, goes sprawling to the floor right next to Castle. He's out of his seat immediately, helping the little one to pick herself up and dust off and turning her back in the direction of her mother.

Kate watches all of it with her heart a silly, liquid thing in her chest. She knew that he has a daughter, but he keeps her so sheltered from the watchful eye of the media that Kate, even with her avid following of him, has never seen him as a father.

When he comes back to his seat he looks a little sheepish, apologises, and Beckett is quick to shake her head. "Don't be sorry. I caught a victim in the city who lived out there, so my captain sent me out to see if her home offers any clues as to why she was in the city in the first place."

"Your captain sent you? Isn't there. . .someone less important who could do that?"

He winces, as if he's expecting her to ream him out, but she laughs instead. Because damn it, he's right. "Yes, there probably is. But she doesn't like me very much. I think she just wanted an excuse to send me away from the precinct."

"She doesn't _like you_?" He's incredulous with it, his voice rising in both pitch and volume to such a degree that the two elderly women across the aisle from them both turn to look. It makes him blush a little bit, but his mouth is still open in bafflement. "I find that impossible to believe."

Beckett shrugs, finds her face splitting apart into a smile. It's sweet, to have this man whom she just met five minutes ago so eager to defend her. "Our old captain recently retired and the new one, Gates, is from Internal Affairs. So she's not exactly popular."

"Well, she's not going to do herself any favours by sending you upstate." He huffs, and Kate giggles before she can manage to bite it back. Her cheeks flush but he doesn't seem to notice; if he does, he's kind enough not to comment. "When do you think we'll get there?"

"I have no idea. Could be hours." Kate groans, dropping her head back against the seat. "And I don't even have a hotel yet or anything."

"You don't?"

"No. It was all a bit spur of the moment." Kate uncrosses her legs and brings her foot up onto the seat, massages her ankle and hisses at the cold touch of her fingers at the thin skin there. She is just too tall to be squashed into a space like this.

Castle is frowning at her still, but she doesn't miss the way his eyes seem to catch and get stuck on the slither of bare skin she reveals to him between the cuff of her pants and the top of her sock. "Where are you headed, exactly? Where did your victim live?"

"In Chestertown." Beckett rubs a hand over her face, scrubs at her eyes. She's exhausted, and the thought of not having anywhere to stay tonight makes her want to cry. Just a little bit.

"No way!" Castle's whole face animates with joy and he beams at her, bouncing in his seat a little bit. "My daughter and I are staying at the Ridin-Hy Ranch nearby."

Her heart does a strange little flutter, something that might be longing, and she ducks her chin to hide her wistful laughter. "Is it nice?"

"It's amazing. We have a jacuzzi."

That makes her laugh again, freer than she has in a very long time. He just seems so enraptured with the world that it's sort of infectious, makes her feel like a jacuzzi is the best thing to possibly happen. And well, with the knots in her shoulders and the ache rippling along her spine, it wouldn't be too far off. "That sounds wonderful."

"It is. Hey, you could stay at our cabin." He seems delighted at this prospect and she rolls her eyes, shakes her head at him.

"I only just met you, Mr Castle. You can't just invite me to stay with you."

He frowns at that, seems genuinely hurt, and she is suddenly swamped with ridiculous guilt. It is not unfair of her to feel uncomfortable staying with a man she has just met, the rational part of her brain yells at her, even as the rest of her softens with his generosity.

"Why not? There's a spare room, and my daughter will be there. It's not like I'm asking you to share my bed." She blushes, her brain instantly providing her with not completely unwelcome images of Castle in bed next to her, Castle's arm around her waist. "I just don't want you to be left with nowhere to go. It's the least I can do for New York's finest."

Kate bites her lip, hard, feels the rush of metallic warmth in her mouth. "That's very kind of you, Mr Castle, but-"

"How about this?" He ploughs right through her. "You look for somewhere to stay in the town. But if you don't find anywhere, call me and you can stay with us."

"I don't have your number." She mutters inanely. It's been a long time since anyone has been so concerned for her, has seemed so worried for her welfare, and it's throwing her for a loop. Beckett can't remember the appropriate way to react here, and all of the lines are getting blurred because she feels like she knows him so well already, and she's so incredibly tempted to take him up on his offer.

After all, she does have a gun.

"I'll put it in your phone." He holds his hand out and she passes her cell over to him, watches him type in his number and rolls her eyes even as she laughs at him when he holds her phone out in front of himself and takes a ridiculous selfie to set as his contact picture.

Kate takes her cell phone back from him and keeps it balanced at her thigh, her fingers stroking over the screen. The way she sort of wants to do with his actual face, but she pushes that firmly out of her mind. As nice and as genuine as he seems, Kate knows perhaps better than anyone that appearances can be deceiving.

That trust, if offered too easily, can be horribly dangerous.

The train jolts into action again and a cheer ripples through the carriage, a smattering of applause. Castle joins in, his face luminescent with delight, and she's quite certain that it's not just because they're moving forward again.

* * *

Kate finds a place to say, a cheap motel where the sheets scratch and the radiator gurgles at her all night long. It's miserable, lonely, and as soon as she decides it's an acceptable hour of the morning she calls Richard Castle and asks him and his daughter if they want to join her for brunch.


	5. Chapter 5

trapped in a bank during a robbery AU

When he woke up this morning, his fingers hummed with the electric impulse to work, his brain so overflowing with ideas for scenes, snatches of conversation, that he barely even noticed his daughter leaving for school. He wrote, hunched over his laptop until his spine and his neck roared in protest.

The latest Derrick novel is coming along great, every scene pouring out of him with an ease he finds almost alarming. He's spent enough time with the character now to know his every move, predict with absolute certainty how Derrick will react to each and every plot device Rick throws his way, and so there's no difficulty anymore. No challenge.

After a few hours, his stomach roars its dissatisfaction and he hits the keyboard shortcut to save the document, saves it again just to be sure. He's got a few errands to run this afternoon anyway, needs to head to the bank and cash his latest cheque from Black Pawn, so he shrugs and closes his laptop, goes in search of his wallet and phone. May as well get lunch from somewhere in the city while he's out.

Rick heads to the bank first and stands in the queue, watching the people that mill around him. There's a cop in the line a few places ahead of him, young and entirely green in her perfectly starched uniform, and for a moment he's utterly entranced by the slope of her nose, the shard of cheekbone that the angle of her head affords him.

Her hat is off, tucked under one arm, and her hair is pulled back into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. She can't be more than a few months out of the academy, not with the way her fingers keep brushing against the handcuffs at her hip as if to check that they're still in place.

The police officer is gorgeous, and he can't help wondering what on earth propelled her into this job. She could be anything she wanted, actress or model or lawyer, and suddenly he's struck with the ridiculous urge to try and get the seam of her mouth to crack open into a smile.

"Next," one of the bank tellers calls out, but he isn't at the front of the queue yet. The man in front of the cop moves towards the counter and as she steps forward to the vacant space at the front of the line he catches the flash of her name badge, a sliver of light from the gap in the window blinds splashing onto the metal.

_Beckett_.

He likes the consonance of it, the easy roll of the hard sounds against his tongue as he murmurs her name to himself. His eyes are still fixed on her and she must feel it, cop training or just a sixth sense, because she half-turns to look at him. A frown puckers her forehead and he smiles, turns his head away so she doesn't think that he was staring.

There's a guy over by the privacy cubicles that catches Rick's eye, scribbling onto a payment coupon. He wouldn't think much of it, would gloss right over the man, except for the sheen of sweat at his forehead. The city has been caught up in a chill for weeks now, an icy casing descending over everything, and Castle can't remember the last time he saw somebody look too warm.

He turns away from the guy again, the beautiful cop in front of him far more interesting to surreptitiously gaze at, but the sound of crumpling paper tugs his eyes right back to the man. He has the payment coupon screwed up in his fist now, and it spikes a sharp line of interest in Rick's gut.

Why would he scrunch it up, after he wrote on it with such determination?

The guy blows a long breath out, his cheeks puffed up with it, and then he wheels around to face everybody in line for the tellers, drawing a gun from the waistband of his pants as he does so.

"Customers face down, you know what this is," he shouts, gun pointed right at Rick's center of mass. The woman between himself and Kate in the queue screams and the guy - bank robber - shifts his focus to her instead, his weapon trembling in his grip. "You. On the floor."

"Don't shoot us," the woman pleads, hysteria rising rapidly in her voice as she sinks down to the linoleum, and Rick suddenly realises that he and Officer Beckett are the only ones still standing.

He raises his hands, palms displayed to the robber with his chequebook caught between his thumb and two fingers, and he sinks slowly to his knees. "You're the boss."

"Alright, open the box. No silent alarms, no dye packs," the bank robber shouts at the tellers, his gun on them now, but the lapse in his focus has given Officer Beckett enough time to get to her feet again and train her gun at the back of the guy's head. As the robber moves over to the counters, she steps up close behind him.

Rick cranes his neck to watch her, the steady aim, the solid breadth of her shoulders. He'd put his money on her, the calm and graceful line of her body as if she's been carved from marble, her aim never wavering even as the robber trembles.

"Put your gun on the ground and turn around slowly, hands behind your head," Beckett says. Her voice is firm and smooth, not exactly loud but enough to draw the robber's attention, and she never so much as shifts her weight when he whips around to face her.

The gun is still tight in the robber's grip and he points it square at Beckett now, something feral in his eyes. Cornered like an animal, and spit flies from his mouth as he yells at her.

"You drop it!" the robber pulls aside his jacket, opening it to reveal the jumble of explosives and wires strapped to his chest and a cascade of terror washes through Rick, cold and thick where it settles in his stomach. "You drop it."

"I can't do that," Beckett says, her gun now trained just north of the robber's chest. There's a twitch at one corner of her lips, but her mouth stays firmly stitched in a grim line as she stares down the guy. "Just put the gun down. I don't want anybody to get hurt."

The robber lowers his gun until his arm hangs by his side, the weapon pressed against his thigh, but the fingers of his free hand rest against the bomb's trigger. "They're supposed to call, right?"

"They're not going to call," Beckett says slowly, her eyes on the guy's hand. If he presses that button they're all dead, and Rick swallows hard and tries not to slam his eyes closed. "They don't know you're in here. They can't see you. They don't know what your plan is."

She's amazing. Rick feels like he should probably be more afraid, here with the cold press of the bank floor against his entire front and his neck aching from the awkward angle it's torqued at to watch what's going on, but Beckett is incredible. Calm and brave and kind, even. When she says she doesn't want anybody to get hurt, she means the robber too, and he marvels at the depth of her compassion.

"Well then they'd better figure it out," the robber says, trembling with rage and adrenaline both, and his fingers twitch against the bomb's trigger. "If they come in here, I'm gonna blow this place sky-high."

The woman next to Rick wails and he turns to glance at her, tries to school his face into something comforting. "It'll be alright. The police officer has it under control."

"Just walk in front of the doors and show them the bomb," Beckett suggests to the robber, her voice still entirely level. Rick wonders if her arms are starting to ache, holding her weapon up for such a long time, but there's no hint of fatigue in her.

The robber shakes his head and lifts his own gun again, waving it at Beckett. "You wanna get me killed."

"I just want everybody to live," she says quietly, her eyes shuttering closed for half a second. He wonders how much of this is her training kicking in, and how much is just instinct. Self-preservation at work to guide her. "It doesn't have to end this way. Just show them."

There's a noise over by the bank's entrance and Rick glances over to see the SWAT team assembling, preparing to come inside. Panic rises in his throat and he swallows hard, prepares himself for the wash of fire that will engulf his body any moment now.

The robber moves his hand around to the bomb's trigger and in one fluid motion Beckett lifts her gun and fires a single round right between the guy's eyes. He crumples immediately, fragile as paper, and Rick sends a silent prayer of gratitude up to whomever might be listening when the robber lands on his back, avoiding the detonation trigger. Immediately, the SWAT guys swarm inside the bank and start evacuating, and Rick gets to his feet and follows everybody else as they leave the bank.

There's a cordon around the building and he gets hustled onto the other side of it, wheeling back around to rail against the taut yellow police tape. Beckett is still on the other side and he calls out to her, can't help his grin when she turns around to see him and strides right over to the line that separates the civilians from law enforcement.

"Beckett," he says again when she reaches him and ducks under the crime scene tape to join him.

"Do I know you? You were in the bank, right?" she asks, hands pushed into the pockets of her uniform. The holster at her hip is empty now, gun probably in evidence for the time being, and she lifts an eyebrow at him. "Can I help you with something?"

Right. Crap. He didn't really plan much further ahead than getting her to notice him and he swallows, scuffing the toe of his shoe along the ground. "I, um. . .I just wanted to thank you. For saving everybody's lives. You were really amazing in there."

"Oh," she flushes, ducking her head, but a smile bloom across the lovely curve of her mouth regardless, two spots of colour high up in her cheeks. "Well, thanks. I've never really dealt with anything like that before."

"It didn't show. You're a really great cop," he assures her, full up with the silly urge to take her hand and squeeze. He wants to know more - everything - and the thought of her walking away and never seeing him again makes him panic, floundering. "I was thinking maybe I could take you out to dinner sometime? To say thank you properly."

Chewing on her bottom lip, Beckett regards him for a moment and then she arches an eyebrow. Her body language is so different now, languid and sensual instead of the fierce lines of resistance she faced the robber with, and Rick has to fight to drag his eyes up to meet hers.

"You don't need to thank me. It's my job to protect the people of New York. And anyway, I don't even know your name."

"It's Rick Castle," he blurts immediately, feeling foolish and smitten as a little boy with his first crush. She smiles again, wide and ripe so that it shows all of her teeth, her eyes creasing up a little at the corners.

Shaking her head just slightly, Beckett pulls her cell phone free from her pocket and unlocks it, passing it over to him. "Put your number in here, and I'll call you when I'm free. It might be a while; my job keeps me busy."

"Sure, yeah, whenever," he splutters, fingers clumsy over the buttons of her phone as he adds himself to her contacts. "I'd just really like to get to know you a little bit. Since you saved me and all."

"Uh-huh," she laughs, taking her phone back from him and ducking underneath the crime scene tape again. She must have a lot to do, statements to give, but after only a couple of steps she turns back to look at him again, an easy smile flirting with the corner of her mouth. "By the way, I'm Kate."

* * *

**A/N:** Any similarity to the X Files episode 'Monday' is entirely not coincidental and I am not sorry at all.


End file.
